Title: Re-imagining democratic citizenship education: Towards a culture of compassionate responsibility
Abstract: A guide for teachers of citizensThe Department of Basic Education's (DoBE, 2011) recently produced Building a culture of and humanity in our schools: A guide for teachers - a practical guide for teachers that can hopefully engender democratic citizenship education in public schools. That is, it can be assumed that the democratic citizenship education agenda in South Africa perhaps only partially succeeded in bringing about meaningful change in public schools. Hence, a 'practical guide' is thought to be apposite to perhaps address some of the difficulties teachers had, in particular in implementing the existing democratic citizenship education agenda. And, since the new 'practical guide' actually provides examples of:... how a rights and responsibilities based culture can be built into school and classroom management [and that it] further gives teachers practical examples across a number of learning areas on how to develop a variety of lessons around rights, responsibilities and values as individuals and as citizens in a democracy (DoBE, 2011:iii),it would not be unreasonable to claim that democratic citizenship education in South Africa has not as yet achieved favourable results, as initially envisaged by policy makers.At face value, the practical guide is a well organised, concept driven and colourful (user friendly) text using many examples of how to acquaint learners with terms and ideas in and about harnessing responsibility and It seems as if the practical guide is meant to make learners understand, clarify and enact ideas associated with cultivating a liberal form of democratic citizenship education. Quite sophisticatedly, it seems to be presented as a practical guide that aims to guide learners in engaging in activities in and about democratic citizenship education. Yet, it does not seem to come up with plausible explanations and ways for how mechanical iterations and blind patriotism can be avoided, and for safety to be responsibly ensured at schools. Instead, the examples and explanations about these pertinent issues seem to further compound the polemic about inculcating in learners a commitment towards and humanity. Let us explain.First, democratic iterations are explained through the use of terms such as 'dialogue', 'debate', 'negotiation' and 'discussion'. In fact, the guide's own explanation of dialogue seems to be biased towards reaching 'agreement': ... an exchange of ideas and opinions on a particular issue, esp. [sic] a religious or political issue with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement (DoBE, 2011:16). The practical guide not only gives a parochial understanding of dialogue, but also seems to conflate the concept with other concepts, such as debate, negotiation and discussion. Considering the aforementioned explanation of dialogue, the practical guide introduces quite mechanically how learners should engage with one another, coming up with very prescriptive and anticipated prompts with the aim, of course, to make learners agree on pedagogical issues. In this sense, the practical guide does not do much to reduce or attend to the conceptual misinterpretation of democratic iterations. If it really wants to serve the purpose of a guide, it needs to couch dialogue in a practical way by making suggestions as to what learners might do or what conditions ought to be in place, without casting dialogue as some mechanical exercise that should make learners reach agreement or a settlement. Of course, dialogue is not the same as debate, discussion and negotiation. If one debates and has a discussion, the outcome is not always an inevitable agreement. Sometimes people debate and discuss issues with others without an agreement being reached, which does not make the dialogue superfluous. Similarly, agreement cannot be a precondition for dialogue, for that would mark the end of dialogue, but rather is an outcome of dialogue. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 9
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